PURE GENIUS
Harley Wilhelm’s secret work for the Manhattan Project launched Ames National Laboratory Story by Teresa Wilhelm Waldof Illustrations by Jenny Witte Contributed photos, ISU Special Collections and University Archives
It was Aug. 6, 1945,
and President Harry S. Truman had just announced the successful deployment of an atomic weapon over Hiroshima, Japan. Harley Wilhelm (PhD ‘31 chemistry) picked up the phone and called home. “Orpha,” he said when his wife answered, “Turn on the radio and you’ll know what I’ve been doing the last three and a half years.” It was at this moment Orpha learned her husband, a chemist at Iowa State College, had been involved in the classified work of the Manhattan Project. As the news spread across the Iowa State campus, young chemists who were performing top secret research under Wilhelm’s direction gathered around a radio in the chemistry building. When Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s voice came over the airwaves, they leaned in to listen. The work done at Iowa State was so secret even they didn’t know for certain what their efforts had been used to create. Stimson provided background on the discovery of fission and detailed how the project had gotten underway in early 1942. It had been an enormous undertaking and a successful collaboration of efforts between government, industry, and academia—one that was unmatched in scale, and eighty years later, still remains the largest-ever. Facilities and manufacturing plants to develop and produce these new, powerful atomic bombs had been quietly operating at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington. Listening intently, Wilhelm’s team soon heard Stimson say, “Certain other manufacturing plants much smaller in scale are located in the United States and in Canada for essential production of needed materials.” The chemists looked at one another in anticipation of what he might say next and wondered, “Would he mention Iowa State?” Stimson continued, “Laboratories at the Universities of Columbia, Chicago, and California, Iowa State College...” With that, the men leapt from their chairs, overjoyed—the secret was finally out.
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